


Legacy

by FullmetalArchivist (1stTimeCaller)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Flashbacks, Low level violence, Mother Issues, Power Play, dubcon, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 04:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20808713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1stTimeCaller/pseuds/FullmetalArchivist
Summary: Riza takes after her mother.





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nice_Valkyrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nice_Valkyrie/gifts).

The curve of the staircase is Riza’s favorite spot. The overlapping banisters are perfectly placed to prevent the entire foyer from seeing her, and there is enough of a gap between for her to see snippets of the activity downstairs.

Her father sits in an armchair in the corner, cigar in hand while men chat around and over him. They swill their brandies, swat each other’s arms and laugh loudly, distracted by each other enough to ignore Berthold’s vacant stare.

At some point, the gramophone is brought out to replace the radio, playing music that Riza only hears at events like this. It is bouncy and fun and Riza can’t wait to grow up, to be allowed to come down the stairs and dance to it. For now, her knee bounces like it has a will of its own.

Her mother’s laugh ebbs and flows and fills the room. The women at the table giggle as well, more reserved. Or at least some do. Some lean back in their chairs and cross their arms, and their silence seems louder than the bustle.

_ “I’m not to everyone’s taste, baby,” _ her mother has told her before. _ “But if people want to go through life with bad taste, I can’t stop ‘em.” _

When the table gets caught up in a more somber topic, Riza’s mother surveys the room, before her eyes sweep up to the stairs, looking directly at Riza.

Her knee immediately stops dancing, and Riza is about to scramble out of sight again, but her mother smiles, bringing a finger to her lips with a wink.

Being a grown-up often seems like a confusing, terrifying thing to be. But every now and then, in moments like these, Riza feels like her mother is letting her in on a trade secret. She smiles back, and returns the gesture.

* * *

Bradley's office is too large, built to show off. It looks less like an official workspace and more like a smoking room. The führer's desk is impractically big, an impressive centerpiece, the chairs soft and comfortable to host guests for unofficial meetings. Though he is head of the military, he doesn't have a "team”, not in the same sense as his colonels and generals, so his desk is the only one in the room. This means that Riza has nowhere to put her meager box of belongings on the first day of her new duty. She drops it unceremoniously to the ground and slides it with her foot into the corner behind the door. There’s nothing important in it—she mainly gathered it to speak to the colonel one last time before this new assignment.

As she is alone, she allows herself a loud exhale and a mental check of the five weapons on her person. None of them will help her, but there is still a comfort in it. She is both relieved and suspicious of his absence. She hones her sniper's will against fidgeting, reminds herself that a quiet battlefield is still a battlefield. She resists the temptation to snoop—any chance of intel gained would be tainted by the possibility of being set up. She doesn’t need to give anyone an excuse to accuse her of treason. Tt's still unclear, whether or not she is better to them as a hostage or a corpse.

When Bradley finally does arrive, he walks in with a man she doesn’t recognize, but his jacket betrays him a captain. They chat amicably and neither pay her any attention as she salutes from the middle of the room.

When Bradley finally does lift his eye to her, he smiles, too wide. Wrinkles crease and swallow his face. 

“Ah, I was told I’d be getting an assistant, but I didn’t think I’d get one so soon. At ease,” he adds like an afterthought, and she lowers her arm.

“Captain Wesson and I have some business to attend to. Why don’t you take the day off, lieutenant?” He chuckles sheepishly as he surveys the room. “I will have something set up for you by tomorrow. To be honest, I’m still not sure what your purpose is, but my wife insisted I start coming home on time, and she thought an assistant would help me with that.” He laughs again, and though it is an innocuous sound, Riza feels like the air is being drawn from the room. “You have her to thank for your promotion.”

She’s mostly confused by the dismissal, but seeing Wesson’s condescending smirk in her periphery, she is also a little humiliated. She salutes again before taking her leave, knowing better than to wait by the door to listen for information. She walks with a soldier’s purpose, but no destination. In a brief moment of doubt, she considers that her role is just a strangely-timed coincidence, before remembering how empty the colonel’s office looked without the small, strange team they spent years assembling. She briefly considers going back to the office, to share the burden of loneliness with the colonel for one last afternoon, but decides against it. For now, she will do as she is told and show no sign of weakness. If the homunculous wants her to think she is unimportant, she will play along and pretend to be.

* * *

She's ten today, and she brings a piece of cake to her mother's bedroom. Riza had fallen asleep the night before to the sound of harsh, spitting whispers downstairs, and among the abstract tittering sounds, the phrase "the money" rang clear. _ The Money _ is a bad omen for Riza's mother—it is a harbinger of a headache that lasts long into the next day.

They can't quite be called arguments. An argument suggests that there are two people involved, and though her father is there, he’s only _ there _ as much as he ever is. In any case, Riza tries to ignore them, but she knows enough. Neither her mother nor her father work, and whatever _ The Money _ once was, it has only been worth mentioning in recent months. Riza's mother doesn’t wear as much makeup or jewellery anymore, and the house hasn't hosted a party in a long time. Though there is food on the table, the cook has been let go and Riza's mother is a poor replacement. She has taught Riza some basic meals as well, and Riza uses her new knowledge when the headaches take over.

The room is dark when she enters, the curtains drawn, the gaps between sharpening light into spears that dissipate around familiar silhouette. Diane Hawkeye sits at the edge of the bed, her back to the door, wisps of thick smoke surrounding her. Riza breathes in the comforting scent of perfume and ash.

She climbs the bed and shuffles along her knees until she is kneeling beside her mother. She lifts up the sliver of sponge and clotted cream in offering. Riza would have liked to have garnished it with strawberries, but they have increased in both popularity and price this season.

Her mother exhales slowly as she looks down at the cake. She takes the plate from Riza's hands and places it on the nightstand.

"Too much of that stuff will make you fat, baby," she says, not unkindly.

Riza isn’t sure how to respond, so she swings her legs from under her to sit more comfortably on the edge of the bed as her mother stubs the cigarette out in the seashell ashtray that she swears was gifted to her by an Aerugian diplomat. Riza loves hearing stories about her mother, before. Some evenings, when she has had some gin and is in a good mood, she'll talk for ages about the people she met, the parties she went to. _ "Oh I hope you get to travel when you're older," _ she would fawn. _ "This town is too small for a personality as big as yours." _

Her mother lifts an ivory-handled hairbrush and holds the top of Riza’s head firmly, keeping her in place while she drags the teeth through her hair.

“Such a beautiful girl,” she coos. “I wish my hair was as pretty as yours.”

Riza’s mother has the prettiest hair Riza has ever seen. It’s a little darker than her own, and it curls loosely at the ends, which sit prettily along the curve of her jaw. It’s shorter than any woman’s Riza has met, and sometimes she puts rollers into it to make it even curlier, so short that it barely brushes against her cheekbones. It is one of a number of indications that Riza’s mother isn’t from around here; the locals find it reason enough to whisper about her. A classmate once told Riza, his mother calls her mother a tart. Riza could tell by the mimicked look of disgust that he wasn’t sure what the word meant either, just that it was something to dislike.

No adult laughs like her mother does, and Riza can't understand why she is scorned for it.

“I’m almost a woman now,” Riza corrects, sitting as still as she can even when the hairbrush snags on a tangle at the back of her neck.

“So you are,” her mother says, encouraging. “And you’ll be a beautiful woman, too.”

Riza feels her mother drop the brush into her lap, so she picks it up and swivels around, her mother already turning her back. Riza reaches up to brush the soft curls, and the brush glides through tangle-free. She hears the snick of flint as her mother lights another cigarette.

“You should be very grateful that you’ll be beautiful, baby.” Violet smoke wisps around her mother’s head, catching the light like a halo. “It will help you more than anything else I could give you.”

Riza continues to brush through the silky hair, feeling an overwhelming urge to say thank you. Before she can get the words out, her mother continues.

“You’ll have to use it well. A beautiful woman can have anything she wants; she just has to know what it is she wants.” She takes another drag, her chest rising and falling smoothly. Her voice catches as she speaks again: “Don’t marry for love, Riza. And more importantly; don’t marry for hate. Don’t be silly like mommy.”

Riza drops the brush and wraps her arms around her mother, hugging into her back. Her mother leans back against her for a moment before shrugging her off. She reclines into her pillows and pinches the bridge of her nose, cigarette hanging from her pale pink lips.

“Leave me to sleep, baby. My migraine hasn’t gone yet.”

Riza's mother doesn't laugh like she used to anymore, and of all the things _ The Money _ has taken, Riza misses that the most.

* * *

“You were in Ishval, yes?”

She almost drops the teacup into his lap, but recovers quickly, hoping his one eye isn’t keen enough to pick up on her fumble. He only speaks to give orders, mindless little orders that she is sure he only gives to showcase his power. Make tea, take files, schedule meetings. The silences are long and heavy and Riza is divided between being thankful for the time to think, and despairing of it. The scratching of pen to paper works up her paranoia, and though she is trained for it, she isn’t used to it anymore, these long periods of being vigilant without distraction.

This is not the kind of distraction she wishes for.

“Yes,” she responds, proud of the smooth cadence of the word.

Bradley fingers the rim of the teacup, watching the steam rise. “You weren’t even graduated, if I remember correctly.” He sighs, and it reminds her of her own sigh when she works with the colonel. A placating little thing, more suited to the room it’s in than the person it belongs to. “Such a shame, to let a child be subjected to such things.”

Riza remembers children, real children, with red eyes and brown skin. Remembers the little boy she had to collect from scattered pieces to bury.

“I’m curious as to what you thought of it. With all the border issues we’ve been having, it’s nice to remember a successful war, no?”

She swallows the bile along with the mess of responses that collect in her throat. She won’t rise to it. She’s here as a bargaining chip, to showcase power over someone else. It’s _ his _weakness, to feel the need to remind her of her own powerlessness. She will learn from this. She just needs time to figure out how to use it.

“I doubt the border issues will last much longer,” she responds, and win or lose, she knows she is right.

* * *

She's sixteen and the only reason she isn't kicked out of school is because the headmaster feels sorry for her. Still, she endures a long lecture about her "sorry state" in his office—a twenty minute series of tongue-clicking, teeth-sucking and and half sentences that morph into sighs.

Riza sits still as he paces around her; at this point he is running out of steam, so he has resorted to quoting the uniform code. Girls must have their hair tied and pinned back neatly so as not to cover their face. Riza's new haircut means there is nothing to tie, but it isn't in her face, and if she had the inclination, she would argue as much.

Instead, she sits quietly, hands in her lap, safe in the knowledge that there’s nothing anyone can do to reverse her decision. He breathes a sigh that sounds heavier, more final than the others. He circles into her field of vision again, leaning against the lip of his desk in front of her, arms and legs crossed.

"You're a bright young lady," he chides. "You knew that this decision would bring consequences."

She bows her head, though she doesn't really need to pretend to show contrition. The upside of having a father who is the source of every rumor mill is that she constantly elicits fear mixed with either disgust or pity, and both work in her favor when she needs them to. She won't be in any real trouble.

Every so often it makes her feel almost invincible, like there are no consequences for anything she does. The person most expected to discipline her ignores everything she does, and it is hard to feel like she needs to defer to someone who would be dead without her.

The man in front of her is the next closest thing, and he sees everything she does as a misguided call for attention, rather than a celebration of its absence. And though she hates the compassion in his eyes, let him think what he wants, if it lets her do what she wants.

She wonders just how shallow his paternal performance is, how he would react if she were to stand up and pull him by the back of the neck to her mouth. Or better yet, she could stay right where she is, reach forward and palm his cock through his trousers. Look up at him with wide eyes, wet her lips. How long would he freeze in place and pretend to battle with his sensibilities?

He gives her a shallow smile, shakes his head in surrender and mutters: “At least your mother would be proud.”

And just like that, the fantasy ends, and her vision blurs. Through gritted teeth, she asks if she can leave now. He looks like her has more to say, but either intuition or diffidence prevents him, and he excuses her with a nod.

* * *

There’s no longer any point in pretending not to be afraid. Not when a shadow has cut through her flesh, stolen her breath. She works diligently and carefully during the day, but she spends the next two evenings in her bedroom curled into herself, occasionally stroking her dog’s fur when he pokes into the bedroom and butts his head against her hand.

On the third night, she fishes a dress that smells like moths from her closet and goes to a bar she’s never set foot in before. The knowledge of being constantly watched only fuels the loneliness, the necessary isolation from everyone she trusts, and she needs something to distract from the hollow feeling in her chest.

She only intends to numb the pain with a few drinks, but she quickly notices a man at the other end of the bar, occasionally lifting his eyes to view her profile. He’s maybe a decade older than her, has salt-and-pepper hair and a nice suit, and though his posture looks good, it certainly isn’t military. She lets him catch her eye a few times before affecting a shy smile, then she sips her drink and waits.

She doesn’t look up when she hears the barstool beside her scrape against the ground. It isn’t until a fresh glass of gin and soda water is placed in front of her that she turns to face him, smiling demurely as she lifts the glass to her lips.

_ “Don’t ever give a man too much attention,” her mother laughs, triumphantly raising the bottle of gin that she managed to sweet-talk the shopkeeper into adding to the grocery bag. “They like to think they’re the ones doing the chasing.” _

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asks.

“Elizabeth,” she says with her best smoky voice, because in this moment she wants to be Elizabeth more than she wants to be Riza.

The night goes quickly from there. She doesn’t pay for another drink, but she still manages to sink into that warm hum that makes her movements less deliberate and her body more fluid. She laughs at his meager jokes, touches his arm with abandon, purrs suggestive phrases into the rim of her glass. It’s so easy, and she would think it pathetic if she weren’t intent on enjoying it.

He is a traveling salesman, he tells her. He spends most of his time in West City, but his best business is in Central. He’s not door-to-door, no. He meets with businesses, pedaling the best security technology money can buy, and they buy it. He doesn’t ask her anything about her job, so she doesn’t tell him.

When she is tired of the game, she puts her hand on his knee and suggests that he show her his hotel room. Once she does, she instantly sees what a waste of time the whole night has been.

He clears his throat, and his ears turn pink as he opens and closes his mouth like he has something stuck in his throat. Riza stops herself from audibly sighing by taking a harsh swig of her drink.

_ “Men don’t like it when a woman takes charge. Remember that, baby.” _

Eventually, he manages to splutter out an excuse of being tired from the trip, and besides, she seems a little drunk.

“So I am,” Riza responds coolly as she finishes the dregs of her drink. The ice cubes water down the burn.

She stumbles a little on the way home, but the cold air helps to waken her a little. She rubs her arms to warm them and when a car passes, the shadows shift around her and she remembers to be afraid.

She passes headquarters, and she doesn’t know what compels her to look up, but she does. She looks for the colonel’s window first. It's on, and she's drunk and dejected enough to see if she can survive another moment of bravery.

She sees the guard standing at the gate and nods to him as she enters, citing a need to collect the jacket she left. He salutes as she passes but she can feel his stare on her.

She doesn’t know what possessed her to take this route home in the first place. But as she gets closer, she can see another light on, higher up, back-lighting a tall, broad figure.

He stands straight, facing the window. His jacket is off, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She isn’t close enough to see if he’s looking at her, but he’s facing her, and his body seems to pivot and follow her movements, like a portrait’s eyes.

She follows the light.

* * *

The first time she has sex, it is unremarkable in all the ways she thought it would be.

She wasn't interested in it for the feeling, per se; the mechanics of it didn’t entice her. In fact, she had been a little disgusted by the prospect when she first decided she was going to do it.

But that isn’t what draws her to fuck her classmate, in her own room. He has one of the loudest snickers in the entire school, when she walks by. She never knows exactly what he is saying, but she knows the message behind it. Riza Hawkeye is a scandal just by virtue of her blood. A dead mother who everyone thought of as a flirt and a tease, and a father who is unstable. The town holds their breath to find out who she would grow to resemble. And his is not the only disgust for her, but it is the loudest.

As she rides him, she wants to tell him what a hypocrite he is. His eyes don’t show disgust anymore, as they roll back into his head. Everyone pretends to hate a scandal until they get to be part of it.

He will likely still treat her with derision when in public. He might even tell his friends about how he fucked her in her father’s house, and paint it as a flaw in her character. But she will know better. She will know what he looks like when he comes, will know the disappointment in his face when she doesn’t. She will know that he feels emasculated for being taken on his back, that he can’t even truthfully say that he fucked her.

The first time Riza has sex, it is to prove a point. And in that way, she gets exactly what she wants.

* * *

He is still standing at the window when she enters. His arms are behind his back, the handle of his sword poking through the crook of his elbow. She closes the door and walks to the middle of the room. She doesn’t salute.

“Selim revealed himself,” he states frankly. It’s not a question, so she doesn’t say a word.

He turns and makes his way to his desk, motioning for her to sit opposite him. Still she doesn’t move; only lets her eyes follow him as he sinks into his chair. She sees his upper lip curl when he stops waiting for her to follow suit.

“It was foolish of him, to give so much away to someone so _inconsequential_.” He spits the word, and it’s too emotional; or trying too hard not to be. She almost laughs at the lack of subtlty, as if she would be so easily stirred by such a jibe. It’s like he understands the theory of social interactions, but not its practice. Almost human, but not quite.

She’s not sure why she didn’t see it sooner, this monster in a skin suit.

“Maybe it’s because I am so inconsequential. What can I do about it?” she says, if for nothing else than to prove that she won’t rise. Let him chew on uncertainty, for a change. She refuses.

Except he doesn’t look phased at all. Instead, he smiles a cruel little smile, mustache twitching as he bares his teeth to speak again.

It fills her with a dread that she can't quite swallow down, or shrug off. Now that she's looking for proof of his inhumanity, she sees it everywhere. When his face moves, it looks like every muscle is an individual organism sliding under his skin.

“It’s only fair that you meet my family," he says calmly. "After all, I’m well acquainted with yours.”

She thinks of her grandfather. Of course it wouldn’t be a secret; not at such a high level. She’s been very careful to keep her connection to him a secret, but being careful hasn’t helped her before. When Bradley stands and circles the desk to approach her, it takes everything in her not to step back a few paces.

He comes close to her, and she can feel his breath on her cheek as his eye travels up and down her body. It flickers constantly back to her face. Her collarbone to her jaw, her hip to her temple, her legs to her hair.

“When I first noticed you, I thought you might be one of us. That you hadn’t aged in over a decade.” He huffs out a humorless laugh. “For just a moment, I had mistaken you for something god-like. You should be flattered.”

She doesn’t know what he means—she’s too tired and a little light-headed and silently berating herself for coming here unprepared. She doesn’t know what he means, but it’s too much, so she asks: “What do you want?”

He laughs again, just as hollow as before. “Years ago, a woman who looked exactly like you came to my office without an appointment. Several highly-trained guards, disarmed by a smile. Truly pathetic.”

Riza’s throat closes up.

“Your grandfather was such a thorn in my side, and just as I was trying to figure out what to do with him, his daughter offers herself to me on a silver platter. She wanted money. She didn’t know that she was exactly the leverage I needed, so she asked for something as trivial as money.” His lip curls in disgust at the recollection. “Such simple creatures, humans.”

For a moment, she loses the fight against instinct, and her body reflexively takes a step back. It is jerked forward again almost instantly, and when she looks down, she sees his fingers curled around her wrist. Her hand is already red from the lack of circulation. When she looks up again, he is starting directly into her eyes.

“Brave, too. For her to have the gall. Nothing worse than a woman who thinks herself so powerful.”

“Did you accept?” she finds herself asking, even though she doesn’t want to know the answer. Even though she already does.

“And now I find myself with another thorn in my side, and another piece of leverage to hold against him,” he says. She swears for a moment that she sees a red glow through his eye patch. The glint is reminiscent of light catching the steel of a blade.

Riza thinks back to the image of the young woman she remembers her mother to be. Of her carefully calculated tinkling laugh, of her calf-length dresses and a cigarette constantly in her hand, of her winks and smirks and every bit of her that people hated. Every bit of her that they secretly enjoyed. Because she didn’t act scandalously for no reason. She did it to entice, but more importantly, she did it to survive.

If there is one thing Riza inherited from her mother, it is that. Her desire to live.

She flexes her fingers and curls them around Bradley’s wrist in turn. He moves to grip her harder, to stop whatever she is doing, but she moves a fraction faster. She pulls down hard until he stumbles a step closer, then she drags his hand between her legs.

For a moment, everything feels suspended, weightless. His eye looks cold, empty, his face doesn’t twitch. She hopes desperately that she shows the same veneer of calm.

He lets go of her wrist and her hand tingles, pins and needles distracting her for just a moment before she is aware of his palm pressed against her center. Heat floods from his hand into her, and it’s just on the edge of too hard, too much at once, but she doesn’t flinch.

He draws his hand back and forth, rubbing through the fabric. The friction is painful, but the pleasure is coaxed with every slow, cruel drag. Her chest heaves and she lets out a low moan as he reaches the hem of her dress and slides past it, gripping her inner thigh and pushing it until she steps her feet out into a wider stance.

His other hand rises to grab her hip, to trace the contour of her waist and brush against her ribs. It crawls further up her body, to her collarbone, the side of her neck, her jaw. It clamps around her mouth, and her next moan is muffled as he pulls her underwear aside.

When his fingers find her entrance, two push into her hard, and she gasps. Her eyes slide closed and her grip on his wrist relaxes, but he wrenches her head side to side with the hand covering her mouth, until she opens her eyes again.

He is still looking at her, emotionless, as he fucks her with his fingers. She’s not wet enough, and he chafes against her walls on the first few pumps, but he establishes a rhythm with or without her body’s co-operation.

She moans again into his hand, drawing ragged breaths from her nostrils until he moves his fingers to cover them too. The heel of his other hand presses brutally against her clit as he curls his fingers inside her, and when she tries to moan again, she can’t.

His mouth twitches when he sees her realization that she can’t breathe. The sudden fear makes her entire body run cold for a moment, and then her lungs burn. Her knees buckle but he drives his fingers into her so hard that he lifts her feet off the ground. Her clit is almost numb with the pressure of his palm, and when he lets her feet touch the floor again, the sudden release of pressure makes her throb painfully. She tries to shake his hand from her mouth but he just grips harder, prying her head backwards until her neck feels like it might snap.

She grabs his arm with both hands and pulls as hard as she can, but he doesn’t budge. Her vision begins to turn white, blood pounding in her ears, and she is so concentrated on trying to breathe that her orgasm takes her by surprise, pulsing heavily through her entire body even as she thinks she is about to die.

She is suddenly on the floor, legs akimbo, elbow stinging with pain and gasping shakily. It feels like forever until she catches her breath, and she still clenches and throbs in the aftermath of her orgasm. Her stomach cramps so tightly that she thinks she might vomit.

He is towering above her, hand raised to his face as he examines his slick, shiny fingers. There’s a fascination in his expression, even as he tries to mask it with revulsion. He doesn’t pay her any attention as she scrambles ungracefully to her feet.

She wants to draw her pistol, wants to scream or punch him like it would affect him if she did so. She wonders if he got what he wanted, if she could turn around and walk out the door. Judging from the fact that he is ignoring her, it seems like he wants her to do exactly that.

So instead, she reaches for his belt buckle. She doesn’t know what she has left to prove, only that she isn’t finished yet. To have such disgust for her because she is a human, yet to want…something. It’s simpler than power; he already has absolute power over her.

He is a monster and a mass murderer, but he is also a hypocrite, and if he won’t be punished for the former, she can at least remind him of the latter.

His trousers fall heavy and loud with the weight of the sword. He looks down sharply at the sound, and before he can think to stop her, she reaches into his briefs and squeezes his cock. It isn’t fully hard, but it’s enough for her to stroke, to feel the slide of his skin.

He lets her pump him a few times before grabbing her hand through his boxers and setting a slower pace. She ignores his guidance, and after a moment, he lets her.

When she begins to sink to her knees, he grabs her by the underarms and pulls her back to her feet. So instead she pushes him backwards, and he almost trips on his trousers as she navigates him toward the desk. The sword drags and scrapes along the floor.

She leans him backwards over the desk, squeezing hard when it feels like he might push back against her. Instead, he sinks backward, and the angle is awkward but she brings her knee up to the desk anyway, to grind his prick between her thighs and her hand.

She lets him sit up on the desk and follows to straddle him. His legs are huge, thick with muscle, and her thighs ache as she tries to stretch herself either side of him. She grinds against him slowly, and he still isn’t fully hard, but the head of his cock is thick when it brushes against her clit.

His eye closes and a small grunt escapes his throat. In that moment, he looks truly vulnerable for the first time she’s ever seen. She has the best opportunity she’ll ever have. She could pull out her gun, or reach down and grab his sword…

She swears she sees it again, that red light behind his eyepatch, before she is bent over the desk, the weight of his body heavy behind her as it pins her down. She is disoriented, confused, but she squeezes her eyes shut when he shoves himself inside her.

His thrusts are necessarily shallow, but he is big enough to feel and the brush of him against her is much less brutal now that she is wet. Her chest feels crushed between him and the desk, but the pain is good, and she uses what little space she has to push her hips back to meet him. When he lifts himself to stand, he pushes against her back with his arms, then slides them down to brace against her lower back.Her own moan is half-hearted, feels more like a kindness than an expression. She wonders if he notices, if he has the capacity to be embarrassed.

It's not her bed, and she's not the one in control. Not mechanically, anyway. Still, with her back turned, he is no monster. He is every man that she has fucked to prove a point. His half a prick is his own body's weakness, and it's something she takes comfort in, to know that his powerful body is still a body. Bodies bleed and expire, and though she's seen homunculi regenerate, she is sure in this moment that even time can kill him.

He pushes on a spot that makes her back arch before traveling further down to palm her ass cheeks. He spreads and kneads and ruts against her as he does so, losing rhythm. Another weakness, she supposes. She knows he is watching as he slides his thumb between her cheeks, before pushing it inside her hole.

She cries out as he grunts, and the sting burns until it doesn’t. She pushes her hips back harder, leaning into the pain, because it's not his power if she wants it too. He continues thrusting but he doesn’t move his thumb. She can feel the slide of his cock against it through her walls—it feels bigger this way.

It’s too much, but it’s not enough, and she pants and thrusts and shuts her eyes so tight that she can see stars. She feels wild, on edge but unable to topple over.

She wriggles enough to free an arm from where it had been trapped beneath her. She shoves it between her legs, circles her clit once, twice…

She doesn’t cry out when she comes, simply inhales through her teeth and shivers violently. It feels like her blood is too hot for her body.

When she comes down, he slips out of her, first with his cock, then after a few lingering seconds, his thumb. It stings again, as her ass clenches around nothing.

Her underwear is soaked and sticky with her juices, they feel cold against her thighs as she closes her legs. She feels messy, but there is no tell-tale trickle down her leg.

When she turns around, he is pulling up his trousers, tucking in his barely-crinkled shirt. Were it not for the tenting of his crotch, he would seem completely unaffected.

She smooths the skirt of her dress and runs a hand through her hair. The first few steps she takes are wobbly, doe-like, and her hip clicks like the magazine of her pistol.

He doesn’t look at her as she walks past him. But before she gets to the door, he speaks.

“I expect you to be early tomorrow morning, to clean up this mess.”

His voice is smug, but she doesn’t rise.

* * *

Rebecca is one of the best actors Riza has ever encountered. She is sly and capable and very good at playing the fool. As she rambles on about how lucky Riza is to work for the führer, Riza almost misses the worried frown that ghosts over her friend’s lips. The moment Riza sees it, she feels an overwhelming sense of relief. Of course this wasn’t just a poorly-timed coffee and catch up. She should never underestimate Rebecca.

After they play the part a little more, chat about men and money and little things (Rebecca even manages to sneak in a dig at Riza’s fashion choices that isn’t entirely performative), Riza steers the conversation towards family.

“I have a grandfather in East City,” Riza says, after listening to Rebecca lie casually about her own family.

Rebecca checks her nails. “Oh yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. I should write and let him know about my new position.” Riza takes a sip of coffee and watches Rebecca pick at dirt that doesn’t exist from under her nails. “He doesn’t like politics very much, but I think he has a bit of a thing for the fuhrer’s wife. He’d be happy to know that she’s as lovely as she seems.”

Riza desperately hopes that the glint in Rebecca’s eyes is one of understanding. She doesn’t know how much Rebecca knows, or even how much her grandfather knows. Everyone seems to have only scraps of information, enough to make a full picture if only they could all get together to discuss it plainly.

But Rebecca changes the conversation again, and the blasé way in which she discusses the pattern of the napkins reassures Riza. She doesn’t know what Grumman will do with the information, but she has done all she can for now.

When Riza says goodbye to her friend and finds the small scrap of paper under Hayate’s collar, she takes a deep breath. It’s almost over, and she intends to survive.


End file.
